


The Killing Moon

by indevan



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Alien Biology, F/M, M/M, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, Mutual Pining, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-04 07:32:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12164349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: Life's hard when you're in love with your best friend who's slowly turning into some kind of alien monster





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not doing writober this year but i want to write some spooky-themed stories so here we are!

Goten was beginning to regret begging his mother to send him to regular school.  He had heard stories from his brother and stories from Trunks and thought that he could handle it.  He didn’t expect how  _ hard _ it was to hide his true power and strength from everyone, nor did he expect to be teased as much as he was.  Nothing was out of bounds: his voice, his clothes, his hair--everything.

Today was no different.  He shivered under his sweatshirt, cursing the increasingly cooler weather that made flying to school more of a pain.  With Trunks around, school would be bearable but because he was a year ahead of him, he only saw him during phys.ed and his drama elective.

Phys.ed was an exercise in futility.  He had to pretend he got winded sweating around the track or that he couldn’t play circles around these jocks.  It was frustrating, especially when the guys mocked him for it.

They stood around in clumps on the field, waiting for the go ahead from the coach to start playing.  Goten hated lacrosse.  No one passed him the ball and sometimes the other guys thought it was funny to trip him with the long end of the stick.

“They have this where you’re from?” one guy, Den, asked.  He waved his stick in one hand.

“They probably use them to go fishing!” Den’s best friend, Ren, added. “Hicks.”

It wasn’t too mean nor as mean as they got, but Goten looked away all the same.  He wished he could ignore them or, better yet, talk back.  He could very easily put them in their places but he didn’t want to seem rude--more than that, he didn’t want to reveal his true nature.

“How about I shove it up your ass, Den?” Trunks draped one arm over Goten’s shoulders and smirked. “Can’t you fucks think of any better material or…?”

He turned his hand out and cocked his head to the side.  Den and Ren bristled.  Their egos were so fragile and yet Goten couldn’t do anything himself to crack them.

“Listen, Briefs…”

Trunks leaned in exaggeratedly, cupping one hand over his ear.

“Yeah?”

Goten wished he had his confidence.  Trunks said what he wanted, when he wanted, and didn’t care if people thought he was rude.

“Thought so,” he said after a moment where the two said nothing.  He stood back up and clapped Goten on the shoulder. “C’mon.  Let’s play.”

The rest of gym class passed by without incident but on his way out of the locker room, Den tripped him.  He  _ could _ have caught himself on his hands and flipped over his body to stand back up but he didn’t think to do that.  Instead, he sprawled inelegantly on the floor.  Trunks came to help him up and he stomped off to the sound of Den’s laughter, his ears burning in shame.

“You want me to kill them for you?” Trunks asked. “‘Cause I’ll do it.”

He shrugged.  The offer was almost tempting.

“You let these guys get to you,” he continued, “Which is why Kami made me.  To stop them.”

He grinned almost viciously and Goten couldn’t help but smile back.  He shoved him playfully.

“I thought you were made because your parents forgot what a condom was.”

He put a hand to his chest as if he’d been wounded.

“Why must you bring that up?” he demanded dramatically.

Goten laughed, used to Trunks’s theatrics.

“You’re the one who told me your mom has ‘sex talks’ with you.”

“Yeah, ‘cause she wants to ‘foster a relationship of equals’ or whatever the fuck that means.” He screwed his face up. “Bad enough I hear them through the wall every other day.”

“Every other  _ day?” _

Trunks’s parents were as close to him as his own and he didn’t really want to hear this but it was a fine distraction from dealing with his grief at school.

“I wouldn’t lie to you about something so gross.”

He shook his head. “I like to pretend my parents have had sex twice.  Once for Gohan, once for me.  It’s a lot easier that way.”

“I wish I had your innocence.”

He shoved him playfully and Trunks cracked up.

“Seriously, though.  If you want, I’ll fuck ‘em up a little.”

He shook his head.

“Nah.  It is what it is.”

Trunks shrugged.

“Alright, but say the word and they get galick gunned.”

He moved his hands to the side and thrust them out in front of him.  Goten was touched.  He swung his arm around his shoulders and pulled him close.  It was a bit awkward now that Goten was several inches taller but he still felt best whenever his best friend hugged him tight.

“You’re spending the night, right?”

“The difference in waking up an hour before school versus four hours?  Yeah.  I’m spending the night.”

\--

Trunks awoke to the blaring of his alarm.  He lifted his arm and smacked the off button, cringing when he heard the crunch.  That was his third clock this week.  Next to him, Goten grumbled and rolled over, not wanting to get up either.  Trunks’s bed was big enough for them to still share, which was getting to be more difficult once he realized that he was one hundred percent  _ in love _ with Goten.  He never said anything because he was a lot of things, but he was no fool.  He didn’t want to ruin what they had.

Trunks smacked him on the shoulder once as a signal to get up and dragged himself from the bed.  He trudged towards his private bathroom, yawning and rubbing his eyes as he went.  His lower back felt weird, like the muscles were tight and coiled.  He used one hand to flick on the light switch and the other went to the small of his back to rub it.  He stopped when his fingers brushed against something hairy.  He turned his back towards the mirror and craned his neck to get a look at himself.  Emerging from the top of his boxers was--a tail.   _ His _ tail.  His mom had told him that he’d had one at birth but she’d had it cut off along with his umbilical cord.  He stared at the prehensile tail that curled out from the small of his back.  It was covered in brown fur and bounced a bit with every move he made.

He stared at the tail and tried to think.  The issue with this, of course, was that he didn’t know much about  _ this _ part of his alien ancestry.  He had never asked his dad about it--his dad!  He’d at least be able to explain why his tail was back so suddenly.

Trunks ran from the bathroom and stuck his head outside his bedroom door.

“MOM!  DAD!”

Goten sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes blearily.

“Trunks, what the--” His eyes went wide. “Dude, what the fuck is that?”

He whirled around, his tail knocking into the doorframe.

“It’s a fucking  _ tail,” _ he said angrily.  He turned back to the door and shouted, “MOM!  DAD!  I NEED YOU!”

He heard the door open at the end of the hall and exhaled a sigh of relief.

“If you wake your sister up, I swear on all that is--” his mom’s words caught in her throat when she approached the open door.

His dad was behind her, grinding sleep from his eyes with the heel of his hand.

“Some of us have sensitive ears,” he growled. “What are you screaming about?”

“This!”

He grabbed his tail and held it up for them both to see.  As he did, he felt a strange tingle go down his spine.

“That’s a tail,” his mom said. “Hon, why does he have a tail?”

Trunks really didn’t like the confused look on his father’s face.

“Saiyan tails can grow back,” he said after a moment, “but only shortly after they’ve been cut off.”

“Does almost eighteen years count as ‘shortly’?” Trunks asked.

“It’s too early for your mouth.”

He threw his arms out, exasperated.

“Oh, I’m sorry.  I just grew a fucking  _ tail _ in the middle of the night.  I’ll try to keep my snark to a minimum.”

His dad glared at his mom for a moment as if cursing her for bestowing Trunks’s with his loudmouth.  He supposed that it was fair, even if he personally thought he got it from them both.  Goten came up behind him during all of this, his head cocked to the side.

“Will mine grow back?” he asked.

His father shrugged.

“No idea.  Kakarrot said his had before, but mine never did.”

His mom tapped her chin as she looked at him and Trunks was never more grateful to see her “contemplative face.”  She would figure out what to do.

“Let’s just cut it off again.  Let’s see...we got Goku’s off by Puar turning into a pair of scissors.  How’d you lose yours again, babe?”

His dad’s perpetual frown deepened a bit.

“A sword.  But we don’t need that.  Goten, hold his tail out.”

Despite everything, Trunks felt a heat prickle at the back of his neck.  There was something weirdly intimate about Goten grabbing his tail.  That is, until he pulled too much and Trunks yowled in pain.

“Dude!” he whined. “That hurt!”

He thumped him on the arm and Goten hit the doorframe.

“Well,  _ that _ hurt.”

He winced. “Sorry.”

He turned to see his parents both staring at him and he felt suddenly cramped, standing like this in his doorway.

“What?”

“You still had your strength,” his mom said.  She turned to his dad and said, “Is this because you’re, like, royal or whatever?”

His dad bristled.

“I am the prince of all Saiyans,” he snapped. “Not ‘royal or whatever.’”

She pinched him in the side. “Whatever.  Just answer the question.”

He looked uncertain, then, and Trunks was worried.  He always knew his life was strange.  He was half-alien, met his future self twice, and was on a first name basis with  _ God _ before his tenth birthday.  This tail thing, though, was a new kind of weirdness that was starting to worry him.

“I had the weakness as a child but my father and Nappa trained me out of it.  As Trunks’s tail was severed at birth, he never had the training so he  _ should _ still have the weakness.”

“Whatever!” he shouted. “Just cut it off!”

Goten still held his tail and this time gently pulled it taut.  His father raised his hand and brought the side of it down at the base.  Pain shot up and down his spine, but the tail remained.

His parents exchanged a look and Trunks bit his lip in worry.  That didn’t look good.

“Let’s keep you from school today,” she said after a moment.

That got Goten’s attention.

“Me too?”

His mom came up and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Sweetie, if your mom found out I let you skip school, she would literally murder me.  So no.  Go get dressed.”

In spite of the situation he was in, the little pout that formed on Goten’s face was so cute that he had to laugh.  With luck, by the time he got back that afternoon, Trunks’s situation would be fixed and everything would be back to normal.

\--

Ignoring Den and Ren and their friends at school was much easier when Goten’s mind was preoccupied.  He was too worried about Trunks to pay attention to them making fun of how he talked or whatever their new thing was that day.  Once he was done getting changed after gym, he ran as fast as he could (without arousing suspicion) to Capsule Corps.

Trunks was in the kitchen with his parents and the first thing Goten noticed was his miserable expression.  The next thing he noticed was the clear source of it: his tail remained.

“No luck?” he asked.

“Obviously.”

He chose not to take that personally.

“We only have until the end of the month to figure it out,” Bulma said.

“What’s at the end of the month?”

Trunks sighed and slumped forward on the table. “The full moon.   _ Apparently _ if you have a tail, if you look at the moon, you turn into a giant, fucking ape.”

“Apes don’t have tails.”

He made a face.

_ “Thank you, Goten.” _

He sat at the table and rubbed Trunks’s back.  Despite his clearly pissed off mood, he gave him a little smile.

“We don’t know if Trunks can control his ape form,” Bulma continued.

“Yay.”

Trunks twirled his finger in the air sarcastically and slumped his head down again.

“We spent all day trying to get it off,” he said with a sigh. “In an unrelated story, my back hurts.”

Bulma came and stroked his hair.

“Don’t worry, baby.  We’ll figure it out.”

“Or you’ll just have to learn to live with your tail.”

She whipped her head to glare at her husband.

“Vegeta!  Not helping!”

He shrugged.

“There are worse things.”

“Our son spontaneously grew a  _ tail. _  Who knows what else changed?”

Trunks groaned.

“If I could have my tail back--”

“Oh, really?”

Trunks sighed and propped his head up on his hand.

“You wanna go train or something?” he asked. “They’re going to go back and forth until...well, I’d tell you because it ‘fosters a relationship of equals’ but I’d really rather not.”

Goten laughed. “Sure.”

They left the kitchen and he couldn’t help but watch Trunks’s tail bob behind him as he walked.  It was easier to rationalize it than saying that he was looking at his butt, which he definitely wasn’t.  It was bad enough that he had tripped into the cliché of falling for his best friend, but he didn’t have to be obvious about it.

“Do you think your ape form will be purple?” he asked, reaching forward to tug on some of Trunks’s hair.

“No idea.  Maybe?”

Outside the gravity room, Trunks slumped against the wall and put his head in his hands.

“I’m kinda freaking out here,” he said. “Not even a ki blast could get it off.”

Goten put a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey.  We’ll figure it out, okay?  We always do.”

He lifted his face and gave him a smile.  The sight of it made Goten’s heart lurch.  It was a bad time to think about it but the only thought in his mind was that he had it bad.

\--

Trunks couldn’t stay home from school indefinitely so his father showed him how to wrap his tail around his waist.  He found a sweater that matched the color of his fur and tied it around it.

“You know, if I wanted, I could just go to college now and not even bother,” he said grumpily.

Goten pinched his elbow. “Don’t you dare abandon me.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re literally the reason I haven’t done that.  Don’t worry.”

No one turned to look at him as he approached his locker but he still had the feeling that eyes were on him.  Trunks tugged on the back of his sweater.  It was uncomfortable having it over his tail, but it was easier than explaining it.

Goten leaned against the bay of lockers while Trunks got their textbooks out.  Locker rentals cost money so he let Goten share with him.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the janitor looking their way.

“He’s looking at your ass,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

“Who?”

“The janitor.  Before you leaned against the locker, he was looking at you.”

He grinned wolfishly and Goten bumped him lightly.

“Behave.”

Trunks chomped his teeth at him and Goten laughed before his expression changed.

“What?”

“Your, uh…” Goten gestured to his own teeth.

He turned to the door of his locker where he had hung a mirror.  He bared his teeth and leaned back.  He hadn’t noticed it before but they were somehow larger and his canines and incisors were longer.

“I guess I won’t talk today,” he said, hiding his mouth behind his hand.

“Yeah, ‘cause people won’t notice you being quiet.”

Something burned in his chest and he slammed his locker door.  The clang reverberated through the hallway and his locker door hung on one hinge.  Several others turned to look at him.  Goten stared at him with wide eyes.

“You okay?”

Trunks stared at the locker and then at Goten.

“I have no idea.”

\--

There was something wrong with Trunks.  It began at his locker but only intensified as days went by.  Goten knew it had to have something to do with his tail.  Trunks was always short-tempered but he was flying off the handle at every little thing.  In gym class, Goten noticed the other students looking at him and knew that  _ they _ noticed it as well.  Whenever he told him to cool it, he’d say that he was “trying.”

While he found himself growing impatient, most of that was taken up by concern.  There was clearly more at play here rather than his newly large teeth and tail.  It wasn’t until he snapped at his sister, though, did Goten know it was bad.  As far as everyone in Capsule Corps was concerned, the sun rose and set on Bra.  Even Vegeta never raised his voice at her.  For Trunks to yell at her was unheard of.  He saw his face after he did it, too, after Bra ran off in tears.  He looked stricken, like someone had punched him.

“I’ll go apologize to her,” he said and took off.

Goten watched him go and knew he had to do something.  What that something was, he had no idea, but this wasn’t normal--even by their standards.  He needed more information and he knew where he had to go to get it.

Trunks was lucky he blew up at Bra while his dad was in the gravity room (and his mom was in the lab).  Goten could only imagine the resulting carnage.  He didn’t bother to knock on the door and instead flared his ki.  He waited, sensing the ki on the other side, waiting for it to lower.  Finally, he felt it dip to something approaching regular levels and the door slid open.

“What is it?”

Goten had long since grown taller than him but Trunks’s dad still intimidated him.  He stood in front of him now, wiping the back of his neck with a towel and scowling.

“Um...I have some questions.”

“This have to do with Trunks?”

He nodded.  Vegeta jerked his head back towards the chamber of the gravity room.

“Come in.  You can spar in that.”

Goten felt himself pale. “What?”

“I’m training.  You train with me.” He spoke slowly, enunciating every word as if Goten were a child.

He cringed but he also knew that this was the only way he could ask the questions he wanted answered.

“Okay, before we do that, can we talk about Trunks?”

Vegeta was already at the console, punching in the settings for the room.  Goten sighed in exasperation.

“I’m worried about him.  He’s acting way more aggressive than usual.  Is this a Saiyan thing?  A Saiyan-with-tails thing?  I need to know.”

He felt his muscles go leaden as the gravity got heavier and heavier.

“I set it at 150g since you’re so out of practice.”

Goten gave a weak thumbs up. “Gee--thanks.  Now about Trunks…”

Vegeta stepped in front of him and cracked his knuckles.  Goten knew he wasn’t going to get out of this unscathed.

“I honestly don’t know,” he said after a moment.  He moved effortlessly through the room while Goten was struggling to stay standing. “The planet blew up when I was five.  Most of what I know is that I remember from my father and what Nappa taught me.”

He came at Goten with a kick and he lifted his arm just in time to defend himself.

“Seriously?  You have no idea if Saiyans get more aggressive the closer it gets to the full moon?”

He felt like he was moving through hot soup but he managed to return most of Vegeta’s blows.

Goten took a hit to the chin, but managed to catch himself before he fell.  He and Trunks used to practice in here all the time, cranking the gravity settings higher just to see what they could take.  It had been a while but he wasn’t completely rusty.

“Truth be told, most Saiyans were aggressive all the time.  You would hardly tell the difference.”

He sighed, despondent, and twenty minutes later, he left the gravity room with sore muscles and no answers.

\--

“Briefs, what’s with that jacket?” the coach demanded.

Trunks reflexively tightened the sleeves around his waist.

“I might get cold.  It’s not a crime, is it?”

The coach stared at him for a moment and then seemed to remember that his grandfather wrote a big check to the school every year and kept his mouth shut.

“Smooth,” Goten whispered.

Trunks discreetly elbowed him.  Everything in his head was starting to blur together and he would snap at the littlest thing.  He also felt...weird and hot all over.

“Alright, boys, so back to lacrosse.”

Trunks cleared his throat loudly and raised his hand.

“Actually, sir, I got a letter from my, uh, lacrosse instructor that says I should avoid any outside influence that may derail his teachings.”

“This wasn’t a problem all last week?”

“He didn’t, um.  Know.”

The coach put his hands on his hips.

“Briefs, if this is another note from your dad that says our school needs more bloodsports--”

“That wasn’t a note.  That was what he said at the open forum q&a at the last parent-teacher night.”

The coach waved a hand, clearly done.

“Fine, fine.  I don’t need to see the note.  Just sit down.”

He breathed a sigh of relief.  He didn’t trust himself to hold back against anyone and he would easily shatter the bones of his classmates.  He knew something was changing in him--it felt like it was bubbling below the surface, ready to boil over.  He fought the urge to glare down at his tail.  He sank down on the bench and rubbed his temples.  He felt a weird feeling in his stomach like he was going to be sick but he didn’t feel at all nauseated.  It was a sort of reverberation throughout his whole body.

He watched the guys play and he felt...this  _ urge _ deep in the pit of his stomach.  He tried to focus on Goten--his usual object of desire--but his eyes kept straying to the other guys as well.  So many of them were taking the sport way too seriously, tripping the other team and being so unnecessarily intense.  Trunks shifted on the bench and bit his lip, only to forget the changes that had happened to his teeth and draw blood.

“Aw, shit,” he mumbled and pressed his tongue to the spot he bit.  The coppery taste of blood filled his mouth and he swallowed it almost hungrily.  That was...different.

Trunks put his hands to his head.  Something was very wrong.

“Yo, Briefs.”

He looked up and Ren stared down at him.  Honestly, he had a bit of an issue differentiating between Den and Ren since they were cut from the same “douchey jock” cloth but this close, he could  _ smell _ the difference.  Ren smelled like sweat and grass and his douchey jock aftershave and he was sharply handsome in an obvious sort of way.

“What?” he asked irritably.

Ren looked around and drew close to him.

“So...um...y’wanna hang out after school?” He cocked a brow. “My parents are out.”

Trunks had no idea where that came from.  Den and Ren were assholes who picked on his best friend.  They never showed  _ any _ interest in him--or, if they did, he was oblivious to it--and yet there he was, offering a hookup.  He saw Goten over Ren’s shoulder, his eyebrows arched in confusion.  Trunks swallowed his bloody spit again and tore his gaze away.  He looked at Ren and was about to snarl at him to fuck off but then there it was--that urge, deep in the pit of his stomach.  He smiled and pushed a hand through his hair.

“Sure.”

\--

He told Goten to go to his house and that he’d meet him there later that night.  Goten looked at him, confused and betrayed, and he tried his best not to meet his eyes.  He just had to get through this and get it out of his system.  It had to do with the  _ damn tail, _ and once he did this, he could calm down and figure out what to do with his predicament.  Maybe he’d stop snapping at everyone, too.  He still couldn’t get Bra’s tear-filled eyes out of his memory from when he yelled at her to shut the hell up.

Ren gave him a beer and told him to go up to his room.  As promised, there were no parents around so he wondered why he wanted all of the cloak and dagger bullshit.  Ren came back up, rubbing his hands.  Trunks rolled his eyes as he drank the shitty water beer that’d been given to him.  He’d been raiding his grandfather’s liquor cabinet since he was thirteen and, as such, had developed expensive taste at a young age.  This was garbage but it was easier to concentrate on that than the look Ren was giving him.

_ It’s to satisfy this urge.  That’s all… _

He set the beer aside and beckoned him to the bed.  Ren was a sloppy, selfish kisser and Trunks rolled his eyes as he pushed him down on the bed.  That was  _ not _ how this was going to go.  Swiftly, he flipped him onto his back and pinned him down.  His tail unfurled itself from his waist and curled in a question mark shape behind him.  Ren’s eyes went wide.

“What’s that?”

“You don’t have one?” he purred.

“Uh, no?”

He silenced him with a kiss, tasting the shitty beer mingling with his saliva and smelling his garbage aftershave.

“Hey...wait…”

Ren dropped his head back on the bed and looked at him with worried eyes.  Trunks started to pull back.  He had to satisfy an urge but he wasn’t going to force anything on him.

“What?”

“Can you...not leave any hickies or nothing?” he asked. “‘Cause I gotta girlfriend and I’m not...I’m not gay like that.”

Something in him surged up and Trunks laughed.  He kissed the meaty joint between his neck and shoulder and then bit down.

\--

Goten should have been pissed--hell, he  _ was _ pissed.  Trunks took off after school with  _ Ren _ of all people and left him in the dust.  The thing was, he  _ couldn’t _ be pissed--not completely, anyway.  Trunks was clearly going through something--something he obviously couldn’t control.  Maybe Saiyans with tails went into heat or something.  He had no idea and Vegeta was no help, Mr. My Planet Blew Up When I Was Five.  How was he going to help Trunks when he didn’t even have all the facts?

He rolled over in bed and realized it felt too large without Trunks in it.  He pulled a pillow over his face and groaned.  There was, of course, the underlying issue that he was jealous.  Trunks was with some other guy and not him.   _ He _ would be willing to help him through whatever this weird situation was, even if he was a  _ wee bit _ less experienced than Trunks was.  He’d be willing to help him through this--but then wouldn’t he feel like he was using Trunks’s predicament for his own desire?

Goten groaned again.  He was  _ not _ going to be getting any sleep tonight.  This entire situation was bad and confusing.  He longed for the days when he was just a dude in love with his best friend without all of this weird, transformation nonsense.

He heard something coming from Trunks’s attached bathroom and sat up, curious at the sound.  It sounded like retching, as if someone was throwing up.  Did Trunks get home?  Did he somehow sneak past Goten while he sandwiched his head between pillows and dealt with his own tumultuous thoughts?  He shook his head and figured that it didn’t really matter.

He got out of bed and made his way towards the bathroom.

“Trunks?  That you?”

He opened the door and saw his best friend crouched in front of the toilet, vomiting violently into the porcelain basin.  He looked ghastly, all drained and pale under the flourescent light, and his hands and mouth were smeared with blood.  Trunks looked at him briefly before his throat convulsed and he vomited more blood into the toilet.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I had this ache,” he moaned, “and I thought it was for sex, but it was to tear everything to fucking pieces.”

Goten’s mind flickered back to Ren and--oh, Kami.  This was bad.  Trunks couldn’t have...could he?  He was clearly not in control of whatever he was doing.  The regular Trunks joked about killing his bullies but would he--?

“Trunks...tell me what happened.  What did you do?”

With a shaking hand, he pointed out through his bedroom to the closed door.  Goten walked out into the hall and his senses were immediately overwhelmed by the smell of blood.  He saw ravaged corpse sitting in the middle of the hall and squinted in the dark.  It looked too small to be Ren but who knew if that was even all of him?  He saw bones, viscera, blood--so much blood--and fur?  Goten pulled the collar of his t-shirt over his nose and inched closer.  It was definitely fur.  Fur and some kind of fabric.  Goten dropped his shirt and ran back into the bathroom.

“You wasted Shu?” he demanded.

He nodded miserably and rested his forehead on the toilet seat.

“He saw me when I came in and I was shaking and something just snapped and I blacked out and next thing I knew, he was dead.”

Trunks shuddered and threw up again.  Goten sank down on the tile next to him and tried to figure out what to do.  They obviously had to clean up the mess.  They could bury Shu and then bring him back with the dragon balls when all was said and done.

_ Sorry, Shu… _

“Maybe we can use the second wish and cure whatever’s going on with you.”

He realized that only stated the second half of his thought and Trunks looked at him curiously.

“Oh, uh, we wish Shu back and then use the second wish to cure you.”

Trunks stared at him and, for a moment, Goten felt like he was looking at a stranger.  His hair was wild all over his head and his eyes were wide.  Blood was smeared from his mouth down to his neck.

“Goten, I don’t know if this  _ can _ be cured,” he said finally.


	2. Chapter 2

Goten was accosted almost the second he walked out of second period.  Ren grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and spun him around.

“Listen, fuckface,” he growled.

His body’s instinct was to flip him over his shoulder but he refrained.

“What?”

Ren’s eyes were bloodshot like he hadn’t gotten any sleep and there was a scarf wrapped several times around his neck.

“You need to rein in your shitty boyfriend and his _ fucking tail.” _ He pulled back the scarf to show the numerous bite marks all over his neck. “How am I gonna explain this to my girlfriend?”

That wasn’t Goten’s concern.

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

It was easier to say that than what he was really thinking, which was that Ren was lucky that a few nasty love bites were  _ all _ Trunks had done to him.  Ren snarled at him for a moment longer before stomping off down the hallway, the tails of his scarf fluttering in his wake.

Goten rushed to the locker he and Trunks shared, hoping to find him there.  He was in luck because there he was, switching out his textbooks.

“Dude,” he said once he got close enough where he could speak low. “You have to cool it.”

“Cool what?”

Really?  He was pretending to sound innocent now?

“Ren’s neck is covered in love bites from big, nasty ape teeth.”

Trunks bared those teeth at him for a moment and let loose a growl from deep in his throat.  He blinked and put both hands over his mouth as if he didn’t understand where it came from.

“I have it under control,” he said once he lowered them. “You worry too much.”

“You have it under control?”

Trunks nodded and pushed some hair from his eyes before giving him his trademark brazen grin.  Its usual wattage was diminished by the fact that his teeth were now so sharp that the grin looked sinister rather than confident.

“I do.”

“I think Shu would say otherwise.”

Trunks’s face fell and Goten left them there in front of his open locker.  Why was Trunks being so flippant about it?  Especially after he freaked out last night over  _ killing someone. _  Goten held his arms loosely as he walked down the hall.  He felt useless.  He just knew things were going to get worse and there was nothing he could do.

\--

“Briefs, I don’t care if your mother’s sister’s alien cop friend or whoever you’re going to pull out of your ass says you can’t play.  Get on the field.”

Goten cast a look at Trunks who hunched his shoulders up around his ears.  He always prided himself on being able to talk his way out of anything and hated whenever that got questioned.  Den smirked at the coach’s words but Ren, still wearing the scarf, didn’t even look their way.  Maybe he was a little bit glad that he and Trunks slept together and his best friend went all vampiric on his neck.  Other than his outburst that morning, he hadn’t said a word or tried to trip Goten in the halls.  He saw Ren whisper something in Den’s ear and then point at him and his stomach sank.

_ I take it back.  They’re worse. _

The coach blew his whistle and play commenced.  Goten wasn’t sure how he got the ball but it somehow appeared in his net.

_ Crap, crap, crap… _

He took off, careful to monitor himself and keep his clumsiness in check.  Den came from the side and checked him.  Goten stumbled and dropped the ball.  Den scooped it up and took it the opposite direction.  He tried to follow but the other boy’s stick got caught in his legs and he tripped.

“Nice job,” Den said with a laugh.

Goten started to pull himself but something streaked past him and tackled Den to the ground.

_ Oh, no… _

Trunks laughed at his misfortune and grabbed the ball up off of the ground.  Den got back to his feet and ran after him, only to get brutally checked again.  Goten stood up and chased after them both.  Trunks wasn’t holding back.  Any more and he would actually hurt someone.  Goten shot past Den and grabbed him before he could shove anyone else out of the way.

“Trunks!”

He shouldered a guy out of the way and Goten moved quickly to catch him before he fell.

“Trunks!”

He grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.  There was a blankness in his friend’s eyes that wasn’t normally there.  His pupils were dilated and he was breathing heavily, saliva clinging to his bigger teeth.  Goten shook him.

“Trunks.  Snap out of it.”

He blinked once, twice, and his face reverted to normal.

“What happened?” he asked, sounding breathless and dazed.

“You almost dislocated Den’s shoulder but no one’s dead this time.”

He leaned against him heavily and Goten helped him off the field.  The coach stared at them both incredulously.

“Son, where’d you get those legs?”

“What?”

“That’s the fastest I’ve seen anyone sprint short distance in years.”

Goten cursed himself.  He hadn’t even realized he had let loose.

“You should go out for track--”

“I live too far,” he said, cutting him off. “Sorry.  Um.  Can we switch out?”

The coach was still too bewildered to say anything else and just nodded.  Two other classmates ran in and he and Trunks were able to sit on the bench.

“Still think you have it ‘under control,’” he whispered.

“Shut it.”

Goten nearly laughed.  This felt almost normal but there was nothing regular about this.  He looked back out at the field and saw Den glaring daggers at him.

_ Well, that’s just great… _

\--

Trunks rubbed the spot between his eyebrows tiredly.  On top of everything else, he had a headache.

“I told you you needed to cool it.”

He loved Goten, truly he did, but he was sick of him playing nursemaid.  He  _ knew _ he needed to do something about whatever was happening to him and he didn’t need Goten constantly reminding him.

“Yes, I know,” he snapped. “It’s fine.  I’m fine.”

“Trunks!  You…” He looked around and dropped his voice to a whisper. “You  _ killed _ someone last night.”

“Thanks, Goten.  I had forgotten that.”

He sighed.  He knew it was bad.  True, they could wish Shu back once they figured this out but it was still so...frightening to know that he took someone’s life, even if he didn’t remember doing it.

“You’re just being way too... _ you _ about everything.  It’s like you aren’t taking it seriously.”

He let out a growl.  His head was pounding and he didn’t need this.

“It’s hard to deal with,” he snapped, “and you don’t get it because it’s  _ not you. _  Okay?  Stop acting like you know everything about this when you don’t.   _ I _ don’t and it’s happening to  _ me, _ okay?”

Goten looked surprised for a moment but then a determined look came onto his face.

“Sorry if I’m worried.  This isn’t normal.”

“Nothing in my life has ever fucking  _ been _ normal.”

“You know what I mean!”

Somehow, during all of this, they had started walking away from the school building.

“I just don’t need you  _ lecturing _ me about it.  I’m the one going through it.  Not you.”

He punctuated the repetition of his words by jabbing his thumb at himself.

“We don’t have to do everything together.  We aren’t kids anymore.”

He didn’t mean it but Goten looked wounded anyway.  He shook his head and waved his hand.

“Okay, fine.  Whatever.”

At the intersection, he turned left rather than right, which was the way towards Capsule Corps.

“Where are you going?”

Goten didn’t turn around as he said, “Home.”

Trunks stamped his foot and yelled, “Fine, be that way!” after him.  He turned away and continued on his way back to his house.  Sure, he was mad but, more than that, he didn’t want Goten to take this entirely on himself.  He had his own life and Trunks was already dealing with his feelings for him on top of all of  _ this _ garbage.  He didn’t want to drag him down further.

The second he got home, he threw his bag down near the entryway and plodded down towards his room.

“Have you seen Shu?”

Trunks came to a stop and stared at Mai briefly for a moment.  In the time since she had been living here, he’d started seeing her as an older sister type.  It was the best way to rationalize her being almost sixty while in the body of a seventeen-year-old.

“No,” he said brusquely and turned away from her.

That apparently wasn’t a good enough answer for her and Mai began to follow him.

“You’ve been acting strange lately.”

Trunks rolled his eyes and undid the sweater from around his waist.  As if it were excited to be free, his tail bobbed out behind him.

“Wonder why.”

“No, more than that.  You’re angrier.  Moodier.”

“Like you’d know.”

But she would.  Other than Goten, Mai was probably the closest thing he had to a friend, as depressing as that sounded.

“Well, as your alternate-universe girlfriend--”

He paused and felt his temper spike.

“Stopping you right there.  You can’t just  _ use _ that to pretend you know jackshit about me.  This Trunks is gay, for one, and for two, we  _ aren’t the same person. _  So fuck off.”

Mai looked surprised at his outburst but she recovered quickly.

“You’re hiding something, Trunks.  I can tell.”

He waved her away and kept walking down the hallway.

“Where’s Shu?” she asked again and he hated the way she sounded--suspicious.

The words were out before he could stop them when he said, “Stop asking or you’ll end up like him.”

He stopped briefly in the hall and put a hand over his mouth.  He couldn’t believe he said that.  Trunks stared at his hands.  He could barely recognize himself.  What was  _ wrong _ with him?

\--

Trunks was right about one thing: he wasn’t like his future counterpart at all.  Mai thought he was sweet and kind and heroic.  This Trunks was moody and arrogant and impulsive.  He was still her friend, though, probably the only one she had.  She liked Pilaf and Shu but she knew she was different from them.  She was out of touch with other teenagers and people her own age just saw her  _ as _ a teenager.  The only person who seemed to not care about that was Trunks.

This past week, though, he was changing.  Never even-tempered, he was now snapping at everyone and everything.  And that weird, ominous comment about Shu...she didn’t trust it.  She found that she didn’t trust  _ him. _

She made her way to Bulma’s lab.  She and Trunks were always close--she had to know what was going on.  Did it have to do with that tail?  She shuddered at the thought.  Decades later and she still remembered the monstrous ape that destroyed Pilaf’s castle.  Would Trunks turn into  _ that _ if he looked at a full moon?

Bulma was at her workbench, fixing some of the bots from the gravity room.

“You’d think after all these years, he would stop blowing them up,” she grumbled to herself.

“Miss Bulma?”

She looked up, her eyes magnified into owlish proportions by her goggles.  She pushed them back into her hair and rubbed at her eyes with gloved hands.

“What is it, Mai?”

Bulma reached forward and pulled a cigarette out of an opened pack that lay next to one of the broken bots.

“I wanted to talk to you about Trunks.”

She nodded and grabbed a lighter.  It was also weird thinking that Bulma was the same girl who they had held captive.

“What is it?”

“He’s been acting weird lately and I can’t find Shu.”

Bulma frowned and took a drag from her cigarette.

“What do you mean?”

“I...don’t know.  But he said if I kept pestering him, I’d end up ‘just like him’ when I asked.”

Bulma exhaled a mouthful of smoke.

“Listen, I know my son.  He might not be himself but he’s not a killer.”

That was true enough, she figured, but she still was nervous.  Trunks was hiding  _ something. _

“Just let it drop,” Bulma advised. “I’ve been testing his blood when I’m not doing...this.”

She gestured at the ruined bots.

“And?”

“Inconclusive,” she said with a sigh. “But we’ll figure out something just...until then, give him the benefit of the doubt.”

Mai nodded but she had a feeling that was easier said than done.

\--

Goten left for the city after dinner.  His mom complained that he was never home these days but his dad said “Aw, go easy on him, Chi-Chi” in that Dad way of his and Goten was off the hook.  His mom wouldn’t admit it, but she was probably glad for the alone time.  She sometimes said that being with his dad was on a time clock for when he’d disappear or die again.  Whenever she said that, Goten would smile and pretend he couldn’t hear it.  That was something he pushed back in his head for future Goten to worry about.  He had enough to think about these days.

In the dark, it was a lot easier to fly into the city undetected.  He landed in the backyard of Capsule Corps and used his key to let himself in.  He walked the familiar path to Trunks’s room and knocked on the door.  It slid open and he stood snarling in the doorway.

“Mai, I said--Goten.”

He tried to revert to a slumped position of nonchalance but Goten knew him better than that.

“I wanted to apologize,” he said. “I’m sorry I’m involving myself so much...I’m just worried about you.”

Trunks wiped a weary hand over his face and leaned against the doorway.

“I’m sorry, too,” he said. “You’re just trying to help and...it means a lot.  That you care.  I’m just--really fucked up by this whole situation.”

Goten nodded. “I get it.  Just...don’t shut me out, but let me know when I’m overstepping anything.”

Trunks gave a small smile and held his arm up.  Goten knocked the side of his arm against his and felt something unclench in his chest.  He suddenly felt like he did as a kid--when he and Trunks were the invincible duo.  Nothing could tear them down or apart.

“Wanna snack?”

“Sure.”

Trunks slung an arm around him and they walked towards the kitchen.  Goten tried to ignore the tail that bounced behind him because, otherwise, this felt like a normal evening.  Trunks was in the middle of making two impossibly high, stacked sandwiches when there was a knock on the back door.  Goten frowned.  Most visitors to Capsule Corps came in through the front and spoke to the round the clock receptionist.

“Can you get that?”

He walked to the door and opened it to find Den of all people on the other side.

“I fucking knew you’d be here.”

“Oh, hey, Den.” He said it partly out of the politeness instilled in him by his parents and partly because he knew keeping his tone neutral would piss Den off more.

“What the hell was that shit you pulled in gym today?” he demanded.

For a moment, Goten had no idea what he was talking about.  His and Trunks’s worries were on a completely different level that petty high school shit was a dot to them.

“Since when are you a  _ fucking _ athlete, you hick?”

“Uh.  I do.  Martial arts.” He started to close the door. “Um, Den, now is not a good time.”

Den’s hand shot out and kept the door open.

“No.  You ran faster than me when you’re a clumsy little  _ shit _ and I wanna know why.  Have you been holding back?”

_ Yes. _

“It was adrenaline.  Really.” Goten started to push the door back.  He knew, if he wanted, he could slam it without hesitation, but he refrained.

“No one shows me up.  I’m the top athlete in school, asshole.”

_ Literally no one cares. _

“Okay.  Won’t happen again.  Bye, Den.”

The other boy kept his hold on the door and Goten knew he was either going to have use a fraction of his real strength or deal with his macho posturing further.  Trunks, though, made up his mind for him.  He barely felt his ki as he came up behind him.

“Hey, Den!  Come on in!”

Without waiting for an answer, he reached out and dragged him into the house.  Goten stared at the empty, darkened stoop and wondered what just happened.

He shut the door and turned around to see Trunks holding Den in a headlock.

“You gonna come for Goten?” he demanded. “Huh?”

Den wriggled in his hold and Goten saw that his face was starting to turn purple.

“Trunks…”

“You think any of this shit matters?  We could literally run circles around your pathetic jocko ass.”

“Trunks!”

Trunks was in that...state again.  He barely looked like himself.  Den’s legs kicked at the ground as he struggled to both free himself and breathe at the same time.

“You know if I press just the  _ tiniest bit, _ I can crush your windpipe.”

“Trunks!” He flared his ki enough to get him to notice.  Trunks looked up. “Stop it.  He’s not worth it.”

Trunks gave one last look to Den and let him go.

“You guys are freaks!” he shouted, breathless.  Bruises were already starting to form on his neck and Goten winced.

“Actually, we’re aliens,” Trunks said with a smirk.

Den took a step back and stumbled.  He fell on the island in the middle of the kitchen, the back of his head hitting one marble corner of it.  He fell on the floor and didn’t move.  His eyes were open, gazing blankly up at the ceiling.  Blood pooled from under his head.

“Is he…?” Goten tried to sense his ki but there was none. “Oh, shit.”

Trunks stared.

“Oops.”

“Trunks!  We killed him.”

“He tripped.  He shouldn’t have fucked with you.”

The time a week ago came back to him.  Trunks joking about killing Den and Ren.  It made him shake now.

“Let’s just bury him near Shu and add him to our wish list.”

He seemed too calm and not at all bothered.  That wasn’t the Trunks he knew.  Together, they took the body into the backyard and dug another hole.  Trunks dumped Den into the hole and cocked his head to the side.

“Y’know, he’s kind of cute.”

Goten thought back to Ren’s neck and the ravaged state he found Shu in.

“If I wasn’t here, would you eat him?”

Trunks laughed.

Later, he helped him clean the blood and Goten felt like he was staring at a stranger.

“I didn’t care,” Trunks muttered quietly.

“What?”

“I didn’t care that he died.  Like, at the time, it was just like ‘oopsie doopsie.’” He licked his lips and stared down at the floor.  After a moment, he lifted his head to look at Goten. “I’m scared.”

Goten took a step closer.

“Scared?”

“What if we can’t stop this?  What’s going to happen when we get closer to the full moon?” he asked. “It’s getting worse, can’t you tell?”

He nodded.

“We have to find a way to fix it,” Goten said. “Both of us.  We’ll figure it out.”

Trunks gave him a tentative smile.

“Just...maybe avoid school for a little bit,” Goten said. “At least a week.”

Trunks nodded his agreement.

Luck was on their side and that week went by without incident.  Goten tried to avoid the missing posters for Den that were plastered in the halls.  He would be back soon.  Once they figured out what was going on with Trunks and were able to stop it, he and Shu would be brought back.

“I’m ready to go back,” Trunks announced one morning at the breakfast table. “I’m so bored at home.”

Goten exchanged a look with Bulma.  It was his first time back to Capsule Corps in that week--he had actually spent the entire time sleeping in his own bed at home.

“I can control it,” he said, eyes wide. “Honest!  I’ve gotten a lot better at my impulse junk.”

“I want to run a few more tests--”

Trunks sighed dramatically and threw himself down into a chair.

“Mom, you’ve been poking me with needles for the past week and nothing’s come up that helps.  Just let me go to school.”

Goten felt Bulma’s eyes on him and he gave a shaky sort of smile.

“You’ll be with him there--what do you think?”

He looked from her to Trunks and bit his lip.  He knew Bulma was right.  Trunks should stay out of school until after the full moon.  Yet, there he was, giving him the sweetest look from his spot at the table.  The look where his eyes looked soft instead of piercing and his hair tumbled down his forehead into them in such a way where all Goten wanted to do was push it back.  The logical part of his brain was at war with the part of him that was very much in love with Trunks and, deep down, he already know which side would win.

“He should go.  Like you said, I’ll be there.”

Trunks leapt out of his chair and came around the table to hug him tightly.  Goten hugged him back and hoped he made the right decision.

\--

The first thing Trunks noticed when he walked in the doors at school was the scent of his classmates.  He could smell the blood thrumming under their skin, under the sweat and hormones and--he could  _ hear _ it all, too.  Chatter from the hall, blurring into some annoying slurry in his head that it pound.

He felt the urge again and he swallowed it down--he couldn’t fuck this up.  He  _ knew _ he was becoming some kind of monster but he couldn’t let it go further.  There was already blood on his hands--he didn’t want any more.

“Hey, Briefs.  Where have you been?”

He stared at the boy who spoke for a moment, trying to place him.  He was in...one of his classes, maybe?  But everyone knew him at school.  Or, at least, they knew his family.

“Out,” he said. “Uh.  Mono.”

“Mono?”

“Yeah.  You know.  The kissing disease.”

He waggled his eyebrows and licked his teeth.  The guy laughed and he exhaled in relief.  Trunks wondered if anyone would notice or care if he just sat in on Goten’s classes today.  It wasn’t like he needed to go to class himself.  School for him was just the social life.  If he wanted to, he could already have his college degree and be working at Capsule Corps.

Someone bumped his shoulder, startling from his thoughts.  Trunks let out a growl and grabbed the person by the arm.  It wasn’t until he heard the crunch of metal did he realize what he’d done.  The poor bastard who had bumped into him was crumpled against the lockers, his eyes wide.

“Uh.  Sorry.”

“Mr. Briefs.”

He turned and saw the principal glaring daggers at him.  Trunks cringed.  The man was always on him for “not living up to his potential” as if any of his classes here were worth his time.

“My office.  Now.”

That was probably for the best.  He tightened his sweater around his waist and followed him to his office.  But how was he going to explain throwing a kid into a bay of lockers?

He shut the door and sank into the chair across from the desk.  Immediately, he felt something in him shift.  Instead of being contrite, he slung one leg over the arm of the chair and hooked his arm over the back.  He smirked.

“What’s up?”

“Sit properly.”

“Nah, I’m good.”

The principal gave him a frustrated look but took his seat anyway.

“You know how we feel about fighting in the halls.  I know you’ve been out for a few days, but I wouldn’t think you of all people would forget our school rules.”

“Yeah.”

“Is everything alright at home?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

Even in his nonchalant pose, he felt that  _ thrum _ in his body.  He honestly didn’t know which urge would be worse at this exact moment: wanting to kill or wanting to fuck.

“I’ve met your parents.”

The tingle was replaced by the now familiar taste of rage.  It was at once bitter and metallic and he hated it.

“What do you mean by that?”

“They’re...well, they aren’t married, are they?”

“I mean, no.  Not, like, legally.”

Since he was a kid, his parents referred to each other as husband and wife but they never actually  _ got married. _  It never bothered him and that the principal was desperately digging for some kind of half-assed, shitty reason why he was “acting out” just made him angrier.  He sat up straight and put his hands through the arms of the chair to grip the seat tightly.

“Everything at home is fine.  I’ve been sick and I wasn’t thinking.  Can I go now?”

He felt the wood of the seat splinter in his hands and that hot feeling against his eyes.  His whole body tingled.

“I’ll apologize to, uh, that kid, okay?” He started to rise from the seat.  He just had to get out and find a way to clear his head.  He had to find Goten.  Goten always centered him.  Goten...Goten...gotta find…

“Sit  _ down, _ Mr. Briefs.”

He was shaking and--where was Goten?  Heard someone growling.  The chair was falling to pieces in his hands and the principal droned on and on about how he was a “discipline case” and he “didn’t care how much money your family has.”  It was causing a feedback with the buzzing in his head and the way his body was almost convulsing.  And then--red.  Everything went bright red and then, when it came back to focus, there was more red.  Blood  _ everywhere. _  He felt the stickiness of it around his mouth, he could feel  _ flesh _ between his teeth.  He looked across the desk and there was the principal--or what was left of him.  He should have felt repulsed or guilty but he didn’t.  It wasn’t even a feeling of nothingness like what happened with Den.  He felt...victorious.  He felt sickeningly proud of what he had done.

Trunks got to his feet and walked over towards the intercom.  He pressed the button and leaned in.

“Can Goten Son please report to the principal’s office?”


	3. Chapter 3

“Can Goten Son please report to the principal’s office?”

Goten sat up straight in his seat.  Around him, his classmates all chanted “Ooooooohhh” at the prospect of him being in trouble.  No one but him seemed to recognize the voice that crackled over the speaker.  He gathered his things and rushed as fast as he could to the principal’s office.  He smelled the blood before he even opened the door.

“Holy shit, Trunks, what did you do  _ this time?” _

“I dunno.  Why don’t you tell him?”

Trunks grabbed the back of the principal’s head and bobbed him up and down like a puppet.  Goten tried to put it together while he was still in this stage.  It seemed when he was responsible for someone’s death (even inadvertently like it was with Den), Trunks went to a blissful, almost jocular mood.  A post-kill euphoria.

“Not funny.”

“Really?  Because I find this situation hilarious.” He dropped the principal’s head and he slumped on the desk. “Goten, I’m a fucking murderer.  I went to a goddamn...rage state and killed him.”

“Trunks…”

He started pacing nervously, gesticulating wildly as he talked.

“I have this tail, I have these  _ teeth _ and...and...I can’t fucking control myself.  If I get pissed, instead of snapping at people, I just rip their throats out!”

Goten rubbed his head.  They had to do something.  They had to...how long would it be until the receptionist or someone got wise and came to check on them?

“We have to...do you have a capsule?”

Trunks stopped snapping but his tail still flicked back and forth behind him.

“What?”

“We’ll...let’s store his body in a capsule and put him with the others.  And let’s.  Clean this place up.  We’ll undo it, okay?”

He shook his head rapidly.

“You can bring them back but what about me?  You’re going to have to take me out back like Old Yeller.”

“We are  _ not _ killing you,” he said, not letting his fear dampen the resolve in his voice.

Trunks put the principal in a capsule and Goten cleaned up the office with a roll of paper towels he found in one of the drawers.  Most of the blood was on the desk or on Trunks so it made things easier.  He dabbed at Trunks’s face and tried to pretend that this wasn’t weirdly intimate.  It was easier if he focused on the very gross fact that he was cleaning blood and gore off his  _ best friend’s _ face to stop him from doing something ridiculous and inappropriate like blushing.

It was easy to leave school after that.  He was amazed at how little people paid attention.  If he didn’t think his mother would somehow find out (and if the situation wasn’t so grave), he would skip school more often.

“Okay, so we hide him with the others and just...I dunno.  Lock me the fuck up until after the full moon, I guess.” Trunks was walking briskly and even though Goten’s legs were longer, he struggled to keep up.

“And after?”

He shrugged.

“I guess we do it all over again every month for the rest of my fucking life.”

Trunks sounded so miserable, so resigned.  He wished that there was something he could do.  He was glad that the walk to Capsule Corps was short.  They went around back to the garden where the bodies were buried.  Goten felt bad adding another one to the pile but they would fix it soon--they had to.

He felt the ki before they rounded the corner and stopped.

“Trunks.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Goten leaned in and whispered, “What do we do?”

“I don’t know just.  Walk over all casual.  We can’t go back around; he’s already sensed us.”

He tried to appear nonchalant as they walked into the garden only for any false bravado to shatter when he saw Vegeta standing by two very unearthed bodies.

“Uh.”

“Dad!”

He stood with his arms crossed. “So.  What’s this?”

Goten wasn’t sure if he was joking or not--which was, often the case with him--and he chewed the inside of his cheek.

“How did you find them?” Trunks asked.

He tapped his nose. “Full-blood Saiyans have heightened senses.”

“It was an accident,” Goten said. “Trunks didn’t mean to--”

Vegeta cut him off with a wave of his hand.

“Please.  Save it for Bulma.  Do you think I care?”

He...what?

“Dad, I’ve killed people.  Well, Shu and the principal.  Den kinda died of circumstances.  Circumstances I caused.  So, okay, three people.” He shook his head. “And you don’t...care?”

“Trunks, do you know how many people I’ve killed?  Because I don’t.”

Goten had, of course, heard stories and  _ knew _ that Trunks’s dad used to be evil and travel the galaxy killing people but he never really thought about it.

“We’re gonna wish them back,” he said, “when it’s over.”

Vegeta scoffed.

“That’s a waste of a wish.”

Trunks gave a quick shake of his head.

“Dad, no.  I agree with Goten.”

He rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Fine.  Get capsules for them.  Can’t leave them rotting.”

Trunks reached into his pocket his pack of spares and paused.

“I gotta say, dad, this is the weirdest bonding moment we’ve ever had.”

\--

Trunks hadn’t even known that they still  _ had _ this gravity chamber.  It was the original, outdoor model that he thought his father had blown up years ago.  Ever since he could remember, they had had the one attached to the house, but apparently it was still on their property and this was where he was spending the next three nights.  His mom had been filled in on everything that happened and this was her solution.

He flexed his bare feet back and forth as he sat on his sleeping back.  This wasn’t too bad.  Goten said he was going to hang out with him during the day and he could just...sleep through the moon.  Trunks curled his lip.  That was too optimistic--the truth was that this sucked.  This sucked and he didn’t know what to do about it.  Was he supposed to live in this thing for the rest of his life?  Would his mom slide in trays of food like he was a prisoner?  And if he did get to see Goten, what if he attacked him?  What if he  _ killed _ his best friend--the guy he was in love with?  Or Bra?  What if he killed Bra and his mother?  That would eventually solve things, Trunks thought dourly, because if he killed Bra and his mother, his father would just kill him outright.

Trunks laid down on his sleeping back and rolled onto his stomach.  He knew he wasn’t going to get to sleep tonight.  He would just wait until the sun shone through the little round windows, nervous and achey and--hot.  He sat up onto his knees.  Shit, he was hot all over.  His skin prickled and burned.  Trunks whipped his shirt off and pressed his upper body against the curved, cold metal of the gravity room.  There was no relief.  He wriggled out of his sweatpants but it was to no avail.

He realized that, in thinking of the sun, he had looked at the windows.  Windows...oh, no.  His mother had forgotten that there were  _ windows _ in here.  Trunks still felt in control of himself so he didn’t think that it was that bad.  Maybe just  _ seeing _ moonlight triggered some kind of allergic reaction but not the actual transformation.

His muscles burned, now, and his skin felt like it was singing off.  Trunks looked down at his hands and saw that they were growing.  He could see coarse, dark hair begin to cover them.

“Oh, no.  No, no, no, no, n--”

He felt his mouth push forward and his teeth began to grow in the rubbery snout that was now his mouth.  The floor of the gravity room was getting further from him.  His bones were shifting and twisting, and his shoulders broadening.  The last thing he noticed before everything whited out was his head hitting the top of the gravity chamber.

\--

It was hard to sleep in Trunks’s bed without him on good days.  He could smell him and sometimes he would rub his nose in his pillow and then feel foolish.  Tonight, it was worse.  Trunks wasn’t absent in bed because he was off with some guy or working late in the lab with Bulma.  He was locked in the gravity chamber outside.  He felt so useless.  Trunks was struggling and he had no idea what to do or how to help him.

He felt the spike of ki before he heard the inhuman roar echo across the property.  Goten sprang out of bed and into the hallway.  His parents were already out there.

“Hon, go see what you can do to.  I’m going to make a call.”

They didn’t seem to notice him yet.  Goten wasn’t sure which of them he should follow but, in a flash, Vegeta was gone and he figured the best he could do was see where Bulma was going.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

She pulled her phone out of the pocket of her robe. “I’m calling your father for help, which we should have done before.  He’s dealt with this.”

“Dad?”

Bulma nodded and dialed the number.  He leaned close enough to be able to hear both sides of the conversation.

“Hello?”

He was honestly surprised that his dad answered.

“Goku!  You have to get down here.  Trunks has turned into a giant ape and is destroying everything!”

There was a pause on the other line before he heard his dad say, “Who is this?”

“GOKU!”

Goten couldn’t wait to figure out if his dad was joking or not.  He needed to go out there with Trunks.  He didn’t know what he could do, but it was better than standing here.  He ran towards the back of the property and pushed the door open to go outside.  He saw him immediately--it was hard not to.  He was rampaging out of control.  Dr. Briefs’s garden was already trampled under his feet and one of the buildings had crumbled to the ground.  He could barely tell it was Trunks except for the fact that the giant ape had his bangs.

He spotted Vegeta firing low energy ki balls at him, ostensibly in an attempt to keep him in the same place.

“Trunks!” he cried.

“It’s no use,” Vegeta said, “He isn’t responding to anything so don’t hold your breath.”

He didn’t fully believe that.  Trunks was in there somewhere--he had to be.

“Trunks!  It’s me!”

He swung at him and Goten flew sharply to the side to get out of the way.  He gritted his teeth.

“Trunks!” he tried again.

An idea came to him and he knew it was a bad one, but Goten never came up with ideas.  Their whole lives, Trunks had had the plans and he had gone along with them.  Even during this, he had had no ideas of his own and just reacted to whatever Trunks did.  Maybe it was because the idea he got was so terrible that it was a good thing that he didn’t often come up with them.

He flew close to Trunks’s face, close enough to smell the hot breath puffing through his flared nostrils.  He flew closer and put his forehead against his.  They hadn’t done this since they were children, when they would try and figure out what the other was thinking.

“Trunks, this isn’t you!” he said, still speaking loudly despite how close they were. “None of this has been.  Please...if you can’t see anything else, just see me.  Just concentrate on my voice.”

He stared into the blank, red eyes of the ape and then--a flicker.  They were blue.

“Trunks!”

He flew back enough to see him fully.  Goten felt another flare of ki and looked around.  His father had appeared behind Trunks--so he  _ was _ joking--and held his tail in his arms.

“Kakarrot!” Vegeta growled. “We tried that.  He doesn’t have the--”

Trunks let out a roar and his body slumped forward.  Goten flew back to avoid getting hit and looked down.  How?  Did his ape form allow him to have that tail weakness?

“Someone cut it off!” his dad yelled.

Vegeta recovered from his surprise first and flung a ki blast at his tail.  Goten waited, unsure if it would work.  It didn’t before, after all, but maybe this form was different.  There was so much none of them knew.

The blast sliced through his tail and it landed with a  _ thud _ on the ground.

“Hi, Goten!” his dad called, waving one arm.

Goten awkwardly waved back. “Uh.  Hi, dad.”

He turned his attention back to Trunks who was shrinking.  The fur retracted back into his body and his face became more human.  Within moments, he was slumped on the ground, naked, with nothing to show for the hell that had been the past couple weeks but a bloody stump at the small of his back.

“Trunks!”

He landed and ran to him.  His father came up, holding Trunks’s tail, which had shrunk along with him despite being severed.  Trunks opened his eyes groggily and sat up.

“Wha happened?”

“You aped out, dude,” Goten said, suddenly breathless.  He let out a shaky laugh and, maybe it was adrenaline from the short-lived fight or maybe he was just that grateful for Trunks being back to normal, but he leaned in to kiss him.

Trunks stiffened in surprise but then he was kissing him back.  They split apart and Trunks gave him his usual grin, and--

“Your teeth are back to normal!”

“I think everything is,” Trunks said. “Nothing like turning into a giant monster ape to finally get with the guy you like, huh?”

Goten felt his cheeks burn.

“Oh.  You...uh...like me?”

“I kissed you back, didn’t I?” he said matter-of-factly.  Then his face softened. “But yeah.  Thank you...for helping me with this and.  I saw you.  When you spoke to me.  When I was still that monster.  So thanks, um, again.  Thank you.”

It wasn’t often that Trunks was at a loss for words and Goten found himself smiling at him.

“Any time.”

Goten kissed him again and Trunks cuddled up in his arms.

“It’s over?”

He looked up to see Bulma carrying a sleepy Bra out into the backyard.  Clearly, she had been woken up by the noise.

“Yep!” his father waved around the severed tail. “I’m not sure what’s goin’ on but it looks fixed!”

Vegeta rolled his eyes and came to join them, arms crossed over his chest.  Goten probably should have said something but he was far more into the naked Trunks he got to hold and kiss now.

“You know,” Vegeta said.  He put his arm around Bulma, which made her widen her eyes in surprise. “I might be getting soft in my old age but I do appreciate a happy ending.”

Bulma frowned and shifted Bra to accommodate the sudden gesture of affection.

“A happy ending?  Hon, three people are dead.”

He shrugged. “Eh.”

**Author's Note:**

> http://vertigoats.tumblr.com


End file.
